Spilling the beans ... finally ...

Last year three of my closest girlfriends and myself got hitched. Between the bridal showers, bachelorette parties and weddings themselves, we covered Lexington, Louisville, Cincinnati, Nashville, Cabo San Lucas and Punta Cana ... and had a wonderful time. We determined toward the end of "Wedding Extravaganza 2009" that we needed to find a way to reconnect as a group at least yearly for a few days. I have been pushing for this for a while but life and hectic schedules always seemed to get in the way. Cue the magazine Real Simple and their feature on a group of six ladies that did just that on an annual basis.
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The premise is simple ... the group agrees on a long weekend and a budget. Then one person, on a rotating basis, is in charge of all major travel plans and choosing the location. So, you are only responsible for details and planning one out of every six years. On your "off" years you are only asked to mail a check and agree to a weekend. The "secret location" is revealed a few weeks ahead of time with flight itineraries and vital information.

We all agreed this was a great idea and the wheels started turning. I volunteered to take on the role of planner for our inaugural trip and hounded the group for dates around March. We decided our trips will be a Friday through Monday and settled (after many, many, many e-mails) on Sept 17 - 20. The budget was set at and was to include airfare, lodging and any major excursions. And, most importantly, the location was to be kept a secret until about 3 weeks before departure.

If you know me, you know I love the beach ... everyone knows I can and am content to go on vacation and lay in the sun most of the day, clean up and hit the town in the evening. But, that's not for everyone ... and as I'm getting older I'm finding that the sun isn't as kind me as it used to be ... and my ADD kicks in. And, I was dead set on proving this group of friends wrong - I wanted to show that I could plan a non-beach vacation. I mulled several options ... New York ... Austin ... Savannah ... LA ... in the end I decided on San Francisco.

We knew with five girls we'd need at least 2 hotel rooms, or even better, a house or condo. In my mass internet searching I found HomeAway, a vacation rental site that is awesome. After weeks of searching and what felt like 100 e-mails to different owners, I found this property in the heart of San Fran and fell in love; it didn't hurt that the price was definitely right and could easily house six gals.
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Through a miracle of mass proportions I was able to find flight times from four different cities that land on Friday and depart on Monday within an hour of each other. I have general ideas of what the group may want to do over the weekend, but only planned one major outing and the city is our oyster for the rest of the trip.

Our one major excursion is a trip to Napa Valley, we have a limo reserved for the day and are planning to explore the Silverado Trail. We have lunch reservations at Cook in St Helena and plans to officially tour one winery, while casually exploring (and tasting) the rest of the day.

So, after months of planning, internet searching and forcing myself to keep quiet around five of my best friends, I can spill the beans ... The best news is that due to cooperative flight pricing and a deal on the lodging, we have about $500 of group funds that will go toward wine tours, dinners, local transportation, etc.
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** If you've been to San Fran and have any restaurant or outing ideas you'd like to pass along, please share. **